Our Summer BAL 13: Brahms Symphony No 3

[akiralx]

VPO/Levine (DG) is my favourite.

Other good ones are Manze and Cantelli (EMI).

[silvestrione]

It's Walter for me, and specifically the earlier New York Philharmonic recordings. Taughter than his second, stereo set with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra.

The whole set is available for peanuts - snap it up!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brahms-Symph...2200940&sr=1-1

Ordered! Thanks for the link, Don. Will be my first Bruno Walter CD ever...once owned his Bruckner 9 with Columbia SO on LP, wonderful it was too, despite the scratch in the scherzo...then I went off him for some reason.

I have also ordered the Abbado, which gets several mentions, and I had forgotten about the Richard Osborne piece (how could I?), and his recommendations always mean a lot to me.

[Don Petter]

Ordered! Thanks for the link, Don.

I do hope you like it! (If not, I'll just slink away and shut up. At least it's not a big investment.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Other good ones are Manze and Cantelli (EMI).

Cantelli! I'd forgotten this - I borrowed an ancient LP from the Public Library in the mid-70s: a lovely, glowing performance, which I haven't heard in nearly 40 years!

Another vote for Manze: I shall definitely seek this out (and the Norrington) - he's rapidly becoming one of my favourite conductors.

[Barbirollians]

RO did a review of this recently in Gramophone and came out for Abbado but he clearly thought very highly of Boult,Walter , Barbirolli, and most of all Furtwangler .

I think that lot are my favourite performances as well as the LSO/Jochum

I see late at night I missed out the Loughran ! I also have a great deal of time for Marin Alsop's 3rd - probably the best in her cycle and Boult's recently released live recording on ICA Classics

[Rolmill]

I have Abbado/BPO, Karajan/BPO (1978), Harnoncourt/BPO, Wand/NDR, Sanderling/Dresden. Abbado's the one I go to most often, wonderfully played and generally very satisfying; closely followed by Sanderling - surprised his Dresden Staatskapelle set hasn't been mentioned yet. Like one or two others, I grew up with the Loughran/Halle on LP and loved it - not heard it for nigh on 25 years now, though, so nostalgia may be trumping critical sense!

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, I shouldn't have forgotten Sanderling with the Staatskapelle... one of the very best, it hasn't been helped by average-sounding budget reissues, but the Japanese Denon Mastersonic remaster is a huge improvement - a transformation, if you've got a spare £20* or so... (Denon coco-70492). Should be found on Amazon under Sanderling/Brahms etc...

*Edit - just looked, make that £30 or so... ah well.

[Petrushka]

I have Abbado/BPO, Karajan/BPO (1978), Harnoncourt/BPO, Wand/NDR, Sanderling/Dresden. Abbado's the one I go to most often, wonderfully played and generally very satisfying; closely followed by Sanderling - surprised his Dresden Staatskapelle set hasn't been mentioned yet. Like one or two others, I grew up with the Loughran/Halle on LP and loved it - not heard it for nigh on 25 years now, though, so nostalgia may be trumping critical sense!

I heard Loughran and the Halle in a live performance of the Brahms 3 in 1975 or 1976 though I don't have any of his recordings on CD.

I have Karajan (x3), Solti, Bohm (x2), Rattle, Furtwangler, Haitink (x3), Klemperer and my favourite, Bruno Walter with the Columbia SO.

[Alf-Prufrock]

I want to thank the O.P. for putting Brahms 3 before us and all the members for their suggestions. This is a symphony I have never pinned down - I just don't know how it should go and over the years have enjoyed everything from near-turgid to near-hysterical.

Looking through my shelves, I see that I have no less than 12 versions on CD, many of them recommended in this thread. I am determined to listen to them and come to a decision about what I actually do like!

[Karafan]

I agree with the nominations for Dorati (Jayne) and Levine (Akiralx).

Anyone like the VPO Kertesz - a tremendously involving performance on Decca? One of his last, actually; made in the Sofiensaal in 1973. He tragically drowned in April of the same year, swimming off the coast of Israel at Herzliya.

[reinerfan]

This symphony, although perhaps the most difficult of the Brahms to bring off in performance, has done particularly well on recordings. I have just checked my database and note, with some embarrassment, that I have 44 versions on CD. As I only keep recordings that have something worthwhile to say to me, I can enjoy them all, but my favourites are with Toscanini, Walter (both NYPO & CSO), Karajan, Klemperer, Kempe, Szell, Boult and Dorati, which probably says more about me and my age group than about the recordings themselves.
I have a couple of "chamber orchestra" versions, and am still waiting for the Berglund from Amazon but, despite the improved inner clarity find them extremely unsatisfying. Perhaps the Berglund, when it arrives, will be more convincing. Abbado is, for me, a very strange case. I admire the orchestral playing, and can find little technically wrong, but remain totally unmoved by his interpretation. Unfortunately, apart from his Italian Opera, I feel the same way about the majority of his pre-illness recordings, and I wish I could understand why.

[BBMmk2]

I have Rattle, JEG and Szell in my collection but sounds I need to look fiurther, eg like my main conductor of all, Claudio Abbado.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Abbado is, for me, a very strange case. I admire the orchestral playing, and can find little technically wrong, but remain totally unmoved by his interpretation. Unfortunately, apart from his Italian Opera, I feel the same way about the majority of his pre-illness recordings, and I wish I could understand why.

I confess that I am surprised that the Abbado got so many "votes" here: I "remember" it as being very fragmented and bitty (a complete contrast to the magnificent recording of the Second from that cycle - a performance that would have got Furtwangler cheering; illuminating the darker corners of that predominantly bright work, making the joyful ending all the more resplendant). I shall have to seek it out and hear it again.

And, yes, I also think that many of Abbado's non-operatic studio recordings before 2000 sound too "careful", as if afraid to let Dionysus get a look in. He was better as a concerto accompanist (working with other Musicians brought out the best of him, IMO) and the Brahms Concerti with Brendel are the only ones to rival Gilels & Jochum in my affections and admiration.

But the Lucerne performances! WOW!

[BBMmk2]

So, Ferney, I will have to add that to my wish list then!!

[silvestrione]

I re-read Richard Osborne's Gramophone piece yesterday, and found myself thinking his phrase, 'the psychopathology of the piece' (used as something Karajan ignores) was over the top, hyperbole, perhaps because I'd recently listened to Cantelli's glorious version.

But then last night I had another listen to Furtwangler (EMI 1949): gosh! The first movement climaxes incendiary, all sorts of dark corners and anguish...The second movement played as a searching slow movement, the horn/cello affirmative theme in the finale pushed to feel almost frantic, the ending, less quietly celebratory, as it can be, more resigned and exhausted...Surely a great performance, but as RO says, no one performance can reveal all this work has to offer.

And I end up thinking about what Furtwangler and his players brought to the piece, in terms of recent experience (1949), how they 'live through' the piece in an incredibly intense way, and think no one could do that today. The Bruckner 8 and 9 from wartime Berlin are even more striking examples.